


Undefined

by evilpinkpen



Category: Doom (2005), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Kind of anyway?, Multi, Reaper!Bones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-20
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 05:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15113189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilpinkpen/pseuds/evilpinkpen
Summary: Being commandeered by Special Forces challenged everything Leonard McCoy thought he knew about himself. Three years later, returning to the Enterprise with so many secrets doesn't improve the situation. A teasing glimpse of a different take on Reaper!Bones. Now with bonus "lost chapter!"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, you know how there are all those Reaper!Bones stories where Reaper eventually takes the identity of Leonard McCoy? Well, one day I made the mistake of wondering, "Gee, what would happen if the transition went in the other direction?"
> 
> The result was this ass-backward Reaper!Bones fic. Herein you will find no John Grimm, no C-24 enhancement, and no long centuries of angst. You will find the RRTS Marines, Olduvai's Imps, and a seriously badass Leonard McCoy. Oh, and an implied threesome that I wasn't actually expecting.
> 
> This was originally intended as a multi-chapter fic; unfortunately, the bunny that inflicted it upon me immediately fled the scene of the crime. However, I think it stands fairly well on its own - and honestly, I'm just too damned fond of the concept to delete it.

**2260, September**

"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil—"

Goat's prayer was interrupted by an agonized shriek from just outside their makeshift bunker—one that was almost,  _almost_ human, and Leonard "Reaper" McCoy was willing to bet that every hard-assed son of a bitch holed up in there with him had flinched in the dark.

Deliver us from evil, indeed.

"Amen, Goat," he muttered, needing no light to finish reassembling the modified G36P assault rifle that seemed more like an extension of himself with every week that passed. The stock slid into place with a familiar click, the sound practically a benediction in the sudden and unnerving silence. "A-fucking-men."

"And if we get out of here alive, I'm already in fucking Tahiti, because that honey at the Coco Cabana was one  _fly_ piece of ass," Duke added.

They each had their own prayers, for nights like that one.

**2262, May—Present Day**

When the transfer order came across, Dr. Leonard McCoy didn't challenge it, despite the fact that he'd only been back on the right side of the hospital bed for two weeks. He hadn't been able to win an argument with Chris Pike even when the man was just attempting to recruit a prematurely washed-up divorcé, and nothing he'd experienced in the intervening seven years suggested that his luck had changed. The situation was becoming an embarrassment to the 'Fleet, he was informed—or at least, to Starfleet Medical—and since Leo had a proven record with this particular problem child, he was clearly the solution. Case closed, so far as Admiral Pike was concerned.

So it was that when the  _Enterprise_ came sulking back into spacedock with her seventh CMO in just over three years already screaming for reassignment, Leo was waiting at the 'port to relieve the frazzled woman, misgivings in tow.

He couldn't say no to the  _Enterprise_  any more than he could say no to Pike. Although he hadn't served on it in three years, it still glowed warmly in his memory as the closest thing to a home he'd had since the divorce. His year on the  _Enterprise_  had been a good one; maybe even the best in his life.

It had also ended incredibly fucking badly, and he figured that he was going to pay for that in full now.

The shuttlecraft docked, and Leo shook hands with the outgoing CMO—a thoroughly capable-looking, gimlet-eyed matron who was practically weeping with gratitude. Waving off her well-intentioned but somewhat incoherent warnings, he boarded in her place, a single duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. He gave the unfamiliar pilot and copilot nods of acknowledgment, but didn't try to initiate conversation.

More unexpectedly, neither did they. His suspicion that the ship's gossip mill was already hard at work—and that it hadn't judged in his favor—strengthened exponentially. His jaw tensed as he strapped himself in and braced for impact.

For once, it wasn't the shuttlecraft that he was worried about. His hands flexed unconsciously, uncomfortably empty.

xxx

Gaila was as shocked as anyone else to hear that Dr. McCoy had accepted a transfer back to the  _Enterprise_ —and that Jim had approved it. Professionally, the doctor's reputation was tarnished by the vanishing act he'd pulled three years ago, even if the brass had apparently supported it. The bad blood was even more bitter among those who'd considered themselves Leo's friends, but had received nothing but silence from the man for those same three years. None of them would  _ever_  have suspected that the practical doctor would take his reaction to a silly rumor to such extremes; especially not the man who had shared his bed, and thus inadvertently started said rumor.

The same man who was currently waiting near her station at the shuttle bay controls with his arms crossed over his gold command tunic, his normally open expression shuttered tight and his blue eyes stormy.

Though Gaila's naturally cheerful disposition didn't promote vindictiveness, she couldn't help but entertain the thought of Leo stumbling off the shuttlecraft, white and shaky as always, to greet his captain with his usual careless salute. She fully expected Jim to put him in his place like the hand of the Highest Deity. She was even looking forward to the confrontation with a sort of anxious anticipation. Judging by the unobtrusive audience that had gathered, she wasn't the only one.

The moment the man in question stepped out of the shuttle door, however, she knew that the reunion wasn't going to play out as expected. Though his full lips were pressed into a tight, pale line, there was no sense of disorientation about him, no annoyed exclamations or wild gesticulation. Instead, he appeared both aware and wary, seeming to survey and analyze the entirety of the bay in the barely perceptible pause before he began the long, exposed walk to the inner doors. Though Gaila was reminded, rather bleakly, of old Terran films showing men en route to the gallows, his stride was smooth and brisk. His gaze met that of James T. Kirk unerringly, and with an equal lack of hesitation.

As he drew nearer, Gaila cataloged the changes in his appearance with increasing unease. His dark hair had been cropped to about an inch from his scalp. Too short for the fine strands to lie flat, it stood up in as many places as not, acquiring an oddly soft but spiky look. The raised, pale line of a scar traced his left cheekbone, and she winced in sympathy; with modern dermal regeneration techniques, it took vicious damage to leave such a visible scar. His face itself, and what she could perceive of his body beneath his medical blues, was leaner and harder than she remembered—and since he'd been Jim's roommate back at the Academy, she had more extensive knowledge of his physique than would otherwise be probable.

She'd spent more than one night in their room, during those days. And people could make what they would of  _that_.

The overall effect wasn't unattractive, by any means. In truth, he looked rakishly handsome…and a little dangerous. And that bothered her more than she could express. Dangerous wasn't a descriptive term she would  _ever_  have applied to the Leo McCoy she'd once counted as a friend, and more.

She brought her regard cautiously to his hazel eyes, afraid of finding them hardened, as well. Though darker and more wary than she'd ever seen them, they were not. Her sigh of relief twisted in her chest when the accurate adjective came to mind.

Haunted. Whatever Leo McCoy had been up to in his absence from the  _Enterprise_ , it had left him scarred, and haunted, and carrying an edge that should have been completely foreign to his nature. Gaila shifted from unease to flat worry, her disappointment in her old friend all but forgotten.

He stopped a precise two yards in front of Jim, snapping to full attention. She saw Jim startle slightly in her peripheral vision, but he recovered with alacrity.

"At ease, Commander." Though Jim's voice gave nothing away, it was Gaila's turn to be startled. She looked more closely at Leo's sleeve and discovered that it did indeed bear the stripes of a full commander, rather than those of a lieutenant commander as it had upon his departure. Her puzzlement was only compounded as Leo shifted into parade rest with an easy grace that she never would have granted him, before.

"Commander Leonard McCoy, MD, reporting for duty, sir. Permission to come aboard, Captain?"

"Permission reluctantly granted, Dr. McCoy," Jim replied flatly, though irony heated his tone with his next statement. "I'll do you the favor of being upfront and honest about our situation." Jim's mouth twisted into a grim smile around the silent addendum,  _the way you weren't_. "I argued against your reinstatement. Unfortunately, I was overruled."

Gaila winced again. It wasn't like Jim to speak so disparagingly to an officer in public, no matter what his personal opinion of the individual in question. She sincerely hoped that Spock, at least, would be able to find enough personal distance to discuss the matter with Jim before it became a habit.

Frankly, that just wasn't a conversation that she wanted to have with her captain and lover. Especially not about this particular officer.

Although his eyes flashed, Leo took the insult stoically. "Duly noted, sir. I had already been made aware of the Admiral's…interest, in the situation." The sinking feeling that this careful response initiated was compounded by her sudden realization that the soft drawl which had always colored the Southerner's speech was completely imperceptible, his enunciation crisp and standard.

"Dismissed," Jim finally said, after a pause just long enough to make her wonder if he'd noticed the same thing. "Yeoman Rand will escort you to your quarters."

The doctor tossed off another impeccable salute before turning to follow the blonde Yeoman, leaving Gaila to lock dismayed eyes with a clearly bewildered Jim Kirk.

What the hell had happened to Leonard McCoy, after he left the  _Enterprise_?

**2259, March**

Leo would always remember thinking how incredibly  _stupid_  the fight that drove him outside that evening was.

"You realize that everyone thinks we're sleeping together, don't you?" he'd asked, tone a little too sharp. They'd been borderline snappish with each other all day, the little things rubbing each other wrong in the way people who've lived together for several years sometimes do.

"We  _are_  sleeping together, Bones," Jim had replied, all amused annoyance.

"Literally, sleeping. That's not how the rumor mill would have it, though."

"Well, it's not like we never have," Jim pointed out, shrugging. "Who cares what they think, anyway?"

"I do, obviously," he snapped, troubled by a question that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Jim didn't give him the chance to elaborate, though.

"Shit, Bones, would you listen to yourself?" he snapped back, rolling his eyes. "You sound like a little schoolgirl, bitching about her rep on the day after prom night. Get over it, already!"

Stung, he'd walked out of the rented cabin where they were enjoying their first Earthside shore leave in over a year without another word. He wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on his feet, with the result that he actually found himself several yards inside the twilit woods surrounding the cabin by the time the elusive thought finally became clear.

He'd kind of been hoping that they would figure out where their relationship stood, themselves, before other people started analyzing it for them.

He didn't get the chance to dwell on the revelation, though. Two shadowy figures barreled out of the woods, and he threw himself out of their path instinctively.

The larger figure resembled nothing so much as a horror movie demon, with shriveled, mushroom-pale skin, slathering fangs, and vicious claws. Almost before he'd dodged out of the way, it had literally picked up the smaller figure—actually a black man larger than Leo himself—and thrown him at Leo's feet.

"Shit!" he yelped, dropping to his knees beside the injured man as the creature's head and chest exploded. Pulse phaser fire, eerily silent, originating from a second human who had emerged from the gloom.

"Status, Duke!" the newcomer barked out as he jogged into speaking range. The late afternoon sunlight limned the tall man's bronze skin and shaved head in gold; a specious halo, to be sure.

"I'm okay, Sarge," the downed man coughed out, struggling to rise.

"The hell you are," Leo muttered viciously, planting a hand in the middle of the man's chest to keep him in place, while the man's gun slipped from fingers that were spasming with pain. But as Leo reached for the ever-present tricorder in his coat pocket, four more monstrous forms skittered out of the trees.

All three men cursed violently, the tall one—Sarge—scrambling to raise the weapon he'd paused to recalibrate. Leo rolled into a defensive position in front of the downed gunman, scooping up the abandoned rifle as he went. The motion wasn't as foreign as most people who knew him would have expected it to be. He had basic weapons training, and an aim he'd been downplaying for years to get overenthusiastic Starfleet instructors off his case.

It came back to him as naturally as it always had—move with the weapon, breathe with the shot. The exquisite physical control and hand-eye coordination that served him so well in the surgical theater were an equal boon in this. He lined up and squeezed off faster than the other man; four clean head shots, while Sarge finished off the bodies with his higher-powered weapon.

"Goddamn," the injured man, Duke, wheezed out, looking at him with new consideration. He licked his lips uncertainly, then continued, "Always double tap with the Imps, man. Head, then heart. Second rule."

"Why, are there more of them?" Leo asked, his voice a harsh whisper.

It was Sarge who answered. "No, only the five. In this pack."

Leo glared at him before thumbing the safety on the assault rifle and setting it down, returning to his patient before they completely lost the light. "What the fuck are you telling me for, then? I'm a doctor, not a goddamn sniper!"

The readings that registered on the tricorder, before he specifically tuned it to the bleeding human, arrested his total, shocked attention for a moment. As a result, he missed the skeptical look that passed between the two men. A low hum from the earpieces he hadn't noticed either man wearing recalled his attention, however, as Sarge tipped his head, listening intently.

"Ten-nine, Destroyer, I didn't copy." He paused, his scowl deepening, then clearing. "Ten-four. We're clear. Send in the cleanup crew." He paused again, expression thoughtful. "No. And call the boss."

He strode over to crouch by the pair on the ground, laying a hand against Duke's sweat-damp forehead. "How's my soldier, doc?" Leo glanced up from his attempts to staunch the man's bleeding, lifting a brow at both the phrasing of the question and the intensity behind it.

"Clawed up with busted ribs," he said, bluntly, "but by some miracle, there's no internal damage."

"Lucky bastard," Sarge noted, and Duke gave him a weak one-fingered salute, trying to rise again. Leo pushed him back down, slightly less gentle than before. He didn't enjoy the man's soft gasp, but it made his point.

"Stop. Moving," he ordered. It earned him another considering look.

"So, doc," Sarge began, and his carefully casual tone set Leo's teeth on edge.

"So,  _Sarge_ ," he drawled back. "Black ops, yeah?"

The man frowned at him. "Why would you assume that?"

Leo leveled a glare at him. "Are most of the people you associate with really that stupid?" Duke choked off a laugh with a quiet moan, but Sarge's frown simply deepened. Leo closed his eyes and sighed. "Because you're shooting up formerly human monsters equipped with synthetic chromosomes in the goddamn backwoods of Oregon, using heavily modified weapons, apparently with every intention of erasing the evidence. And you're desperate to get your boy out without involving the local EMS." He opened his eyes and met two shocked faces with a humorless smile. "That  _is_  what you were about to ask me, isn't it? Seeing as I'm already in deeper than either of us would like."

" _I've_ got no fucking complaints," Duke muttered. They both ignored him. Sarge was observing Leo carefully, measuringly. When he suddenly found the man's phaser pointed at his head, Leo understood why.

The wary sergeant had seen his intention to run almost before he'd finished making the decision.

"It's a little too late for that, doc," Sarge informed him, not without regret. But underlying that was a flat determination that made Leo narrow his eyes at the larger man across the phaser barrel.

"It's like that, huh?" The rest of the "cleanup crew" had evidently arrived—Leo was aware of at least three more weapons trained on him, and a silent Asian man had retrieved Duke's discarded rifle.

"Out of all of our hands, really. But yeah, I'm pretty fucking sure it's like that."

"Then hand me your goddamn med kit and get the hell out of my face," he growled, never letting his glare waver. For a moment, the man's expression and trigger finger tensed, and Leo braced for the denouement. But before it came, a braying laugh broke the moment.

"Damn, Sarge. Please tell me you're gonna rip this civvy a new pussy!"

"Dunno, Portman. Seems like a shame to waste that kind of brass," a deep, new voice rumbled thoughtfully in response.

Sarge seemed to hover on the precipice for another moment, tempted. But then he shook his head and holstered the phase pistol. "Destroyer's right." He looked pointedly at the downed monsters. "And I seriously doubt this one's a civvy."

Duke looked up at him intently. "Seriously, dude? You 'Fleet?" Something in his expression must have given him away, because the injured man crowed in excitement, then gasped, then coughed, and somehow still managed to begin an enthusiastic recounting in the midst of it all. "Shoulda seen it! Handled that rifle like some kinda grim-fucking-reaper, man—cut those bitches down before they even knew what hit them! And he's a fucking  _doctor_ , too. Smart one. Didn't even have to tell him about the C-24." Duke grinned up at him, eyes actually shining with mirth. "Your ass is so ours, doc."

By the next morning, that prediction had proven distressingly correct. Starfleet  _did_ own his ass—and they handed it over to Gunnery Sergeant Asher Mahonin of the Rapid Response Tactical Squad upon request. Apparently, keeping an ancient Martian genetically engineered zombie plague from wiping out all humanoid races trumped serving as CMO of the flagship, because the decision was absolute. Equally apparently, the fact that Leo technically outranked the NCO got lost in the...unusual nature of his transfer.

Until such a time as time as the mess he'd so inadvertently stumbled into was resolved, Lieutenant Commander Leonard McCoy had officially been commandeered by Starfleet Special Forces.

His code name?

Reaper. The irony was far from lost on him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I pulled up my original doc for this fic so that I could archive it here on AO3, I hadn't looked at it in years. Imagine my surprise when I discovered an entire chapter or two of new material that I don't remember writing at all. Near as I can tell, I came back to the fic in November of 2014 and tried to finish it. I still failed, which is probably why I put the new stuff away and forgot. And I honestly don't know if tacking it on here makes the effect of the (technically abandoned) story better or worse. But it's half-decent material, and I at least enjoyed rediscovering it, so yeah. Here you go.

**2262, May—Present Day**

As Jim Kirk watched his new-old CMO stride away in Janice Rand's wake, his knees nearly buckled under the conflicting signals that his mind and body were sending him. It wasn't exactly an unfamiliar state of affairs—his…relationship, whatever it was, with Bones had always been a point of confusion for him. But the sheer violence of his responses to his former whatever-the-hell they were, even after three years of absence, still caught him off guard.

On the one hand, the wrench in his chest and the burning in his throat were the product of a sorrow that was so filled with fury, it was all he could do not to stalk after the man and deliver the brutal dressing down that he'd been practicing in his head for three years. Leo had  _walked out_  on him—his best friend, his captain, his sometime lover—without a word of warning or explanation; and now he seemed set to waltz back in with the same, under the auspices of Christopher-fucking-Pike. It stung Jim's pride at least as badly as it bruised his heart.

On the other hand, from the moment Leo stepped off the shuttlecraft Jim's mind had been inundated by the joyous litany of  _he's back he's back he's back_ , and his gut twisted with regret at the few harsh words he'd already delivered. The rest of his body also seemed inclined to stalk Leo back to his quarters, but only so he could take the man in his arms and investigate all those worrying, intriguing changes. To undress him and explore his lean new muscularity, to trail kisses over his scarred cheek and whisper girly things like "promise you'll never leave me again." To erase the hurt that had flashed through those too-familiar eyes by enveloping them both in reassuring physicality.

The impulse terrified him…and excited him.

But as their audience drifted away, chattering excitedly amongst themselves, he met Gaila's dismayed gaze and was forcefully reminded, with both relief and regret, that this gentler option was no longer a possibility.

Gaila had an almost infinite capacity to forgive—the fact that she'd given him a second chance after he exploited their relationship during the  _Kobayashi Maru_  fiasco proved that. He wasn't going to risk the trust she'd patiently allowed him to rebuild since then.

Especially not by returning to the bed of a man who'd so thoroughly abused his own.

xxx

Leo spent half the night tossing and turning in the familiar-strange confines of his bunk, and the other half shadowboxing his inner demons in a deserted corner of the gym. He'd have preferred to take out his frustration on one of the holographic training sims, but he wasn't sure yet how to explain away the score that would be recorded.

The confrontation with Jim kept replaying in his mind. One look at the man's face—young, but not nearly as young as he remembered it—had told him better than any words could that he was dealing with  _Captain_  Kirk, thank-you-very-much, and that the captain was  _pissed_. He could see the bitter denouncement in Jim's storm-eyed expression, knew that the harsh words on the tip of the captain's tongue would flay open wounds still far too raw after that final, devastating stand at Olduvai.

Realized, with resigned grief, that he was no longer among friends on the  _Enterprise_  any more than he had been with the RRTS—a glance at Gaila's lovely face had revealed the same anger and distaste.

So, he'd deflected the imminent attack in the only way he knew how. He'd greeted Jim Kirk with the same coldly caustic formality that had been his defense against Sarge at his worst, even though it had twisted something inside him into a sickening configuration that had yet to loosen its grip on his heart. Now, he grappled with invisible enemies under the soft lights of gamma shift and hoped like hell that walking into Medical in a few hours and coming face-to-face with his responsibilities as an officer and a physician would be enough to get him through the day.

It had worked when he was a Marine, after all. And if he'd been stupid enough to hope that something more awaited him here on the  _Enterprise_ , well, he had no one but his damn fool self to blame.

**2162, February**

Playing field medic for Special Forces was a very different kind of medicine than he'd practiced on Earth, or even on the  _Enterprise_ —and not just in the obvious ways.

He'd always known that, of course, but racing around the quadrant putting out genetically-engineered fires hadn't left him with much time or energy for introspection. Things had recently slowed down on that front, however, and there were even tentative hopes that they were close to succeeding in their mission.

It should have been an encouraging situation, but Leo found that it left him with far too much time on his hands—or more to the point, his mind—and a few too many disturbing thoughts to fill it with.

For example, there was the moment at the end of their latest mission when he'd frozen dead still in the middle of applying field sutures to Portman's forearm, because he'd suddenly realized that he'd been putting plasma bolts in Imps with absolutely no intentions aside from getting through the damned things and patching up whoever they'd managed to fuck up this time.

There'd been no thoughts of the greater goddamned good, whatever the hell that was supposed to be. No self-assurances that he was protecting the loved ones he'd left behind. The fact that his targets had once been sentient beings, presumably with loved ones of their own, was just more background noise. There was nothing but the fucking familiar business of popping monsters, like filing paperwork in triplicate—scope, head, heart, repeat—until he got to the other side, found out who was bleeding, and fixed it. Didn't even matter if the bleeder was almost a friend, like Duke, or decidedly not, like Portman. He was just doing his goddamn job.

Even though the tunnel vision didn't last much beyond the battle, he knew it signaled some pretty extensive mental rewiring on his part—and he was equally sure that he didn't like the ramifications of it.

The long quiet spell had left the rest of the team at even more of a loose end than he was—he at least had his C-24 research, however distasteful he found it. Their boredom meant that he never went long without more mundane medical responsibilities, however. The combination of high spirits and expensive, dangerous toys resulted in some situations that brought back memories of the  _Enterprise_  with aching clarity.

That bit of insanity involving Duke, Mac, and the rookie that everyone just called The Kid, twenty-first century projectile weapons, and homemade explosives stood out particularly. It was just a little too much like one of Scotty's many misbegotten "experiments" for Leo's comfort, and he didn't care  _how_  they justified it. So when the three of them were duly trapped in his infirmary, with broken bones to be knitted and burned skin needing regeneration, he'd had only one thing to say to them.

"If you ever do anything that stupid again, as soon as I finish putting you back together I will personally take you out back and fuck you up so righteously that the original injuries feel fucking orgasmic by comparison. Do you understand?" He'd said something only slightly milder to Scotty, as he recalled, though it had been accompanied by a long, blistering lecture and a great deal of hand waving, and the engineer had laughed it off as the idle threat it was.

The three Marines, on the other hand, knew that the matter-of-fact tone and furious eyes meant that he was absolutely and literally serious. Mac gave him a solemn nod, and The Kid looked ready to faint.

Leo wasn't sure what to think of the fact that the twenty-year-old apparently found him scarier than the Imps he'd already faced down several times. Or nitroglycerine, for that matter.

**Present Day**

Four days after officially recommencing his career as CMO of the  _Enterprise_ , Leo managed to make Ensign Hernandez cry. And as the tough-as-nails engineer dissolved into tears in front of him, he couldn't do anything but look at her blankly, his thoughts torn equally between  _what the hell_  and  _just fucking great_.

He'd grant that his manner was gruff at best, because Marines really didn't appreciate gentle handling and he was going to have to work his way back up to it, damn it. But he'd been doing his level best to restrain the sharp edge of both his tongue and his temper. Hell, it was nearly lunchtime, and he hadn't  _once_  raised his voice, cursed, or disparaged anyone's intellect, parentage, or probable sexual practices.

In other words, his behavior was more rigorously professional than it had  _ever_  been. He strongly suspected that was part of the reason that Christine Chapel and the rest of the alpha shift medical staff had been eying him suspiciously all week.

The main reason, of course, was that  _everyone_  on the ship was watching him suspiciously—Jim had set that tone the moment Leo stepped off the transport, and the rest of the crew trusted the captain enough to follow his lead. And although he knew that the wall of coolly sardonic professionalism that he'd cultivated during his time with Special Forces wasn't helping to allay those suspicions, he had nonetheless slammed it into place with a vengeance the moment he'd encountered Jim Kirk's hostility in the shuttle bay.

The moment he'd realized that the  _Enterprise_ was no longer home, and he was no more among friends there than he had been in the RRTS.

It was a hard truth—quite possibly the hardest he'd ever faced in a life that had never bothered to pull its punches. But he was a physician, an officer, and—heaven help him—a Marine, so even if it meant walling off the soul that was still bleeding raw in the shadows of Olduvai, he'd do his goddamn job.

Having made that grim determination, when Rebecca Hernandez began sobbing in the middle of a completely routine examination, he did what any self-respecting Marine would do if faced with such a situation.

Knowing that Christine would be glaring at him from only a few yards away—she always was—he turned to his Head Nurse and handed her the padd on which he'd accessed the Ensign's chart.

"Nurse Chapel, would you mind taking over here? Please?" He added the last when the nurse simply looked at him incredulously, and there was no panic in his voice, because Marines didn't panic, goddamn it. Even if they were seconds from giving the terminally infantile a  _reason_  to cry and ruining their minimal credibility.

His thoughts must have been visible in his eyes, because Christine couldn't restrain her frustration as she took the padd from him. "Honestly, McCoy, just  _where_  have you been practicing medicine for the last three years?"

It was the first thing anyone on board had asked him that was more personal than, "Can you hand me that hypo?" So, of course, it was the one question that he couldn't answer freely. If he'd been a better liar, HQ would have provided him with a cover story. That was SOP. But at this point, they seemed to be resigned to the fact that  _nothing_  about his stint with the RRTS was textbook, and his orders were accordingly atypical—though no less clear. He could tell his crewmates exactly as much about the last three years as was a matter of non-classified record. Which, aside from the simple fact of his transfer, was fuck-all.

He knew he needed to say something,  _anything_ , instead of standing there frozen with god-knows-what betraying him in his expression and Christine actually going pale under his regard. He didn't enjoy her fear any more than he liked the scorn and mistrust that he'd previously received. But somehow, he doubted that dropping the "I got commandeered by Special Forces" bomb and then doing his best clam impression was going to improve any of those responses. He already knew that it hadn't impressed Jim, who had access to his heavily-redacted personnel file. In fact, there was a high probability that the truth, uncorroborated and unexplained, would only worsen the suspicion and resentment of a crew that already regarded him with skepticism.

Looking into the wary eyes of a woman with whom he'd once believed that he shared a friendship built on mutual respect, remembering the distaste with which so many old friends now regarded him and the anger of a man he'd been stupid enough to love, he knew that he wasn't strong enough to handle the consequences of that choice.

"It doesn't matter," he finally said, turning away and hoping that she either wouldn't notice the strain behind his careful neutrality, or wouldn't care enough to analyze it if she did.

The feeling of more than one set of eyes burning holes in his back as he walked away quickly turned even that faint hope to ashes, though.

**2261, April**

The nest on Denobula was a big one. The creature that infiltrated the transport had been one of the older ones, smart enough not to leave a trail of broken bodies behind it. It had taken them far too long to discover this new hot spot, as a result.

They were in the Denobulan equivalent of the sewer system, and Leo was grateful, for once, of the Imps' predilection to occupy closed spaces—sewers, caves, ventilation shafts. Forests if they had to, like in Oregon. It was a tactical nightmare, and Leo strongly suspected that he was going to finish out his life—however long  _that_  might be—with fucking claustrophobia on top of his fear of flying. But on the other hand, it would have been utterly impossible to hide an operation like this on Denobula's densely populated, urban surface.

He was long past hoping that the team would slip up and become public knowledge. It wouldn't give him his life back, not at this late remove. And from his own research on the mutation, he no longer disagreed with the brass who went into hysterics at the thought of C-24 falling into the wrong hands. It was an artificial chromosome, cooked up on a Martian research station at the height of World War III—a suicide cocktail that could convert the members of most humanoid species into supersoldiers.

_Could_. Theoretically. In actual practice, though, it just turned them into monsters. Cannibalistic,  _contagious_  monsters. Monsters that the RRTS had been desperately attempting to contain ever since a lone survivor of the original experiments had escaped the ruins of Olduvai Station and proceeded to propagate on a mining transport back in '57. And the mutation was irreversible—he'd proven that to his own satisfaction, at least.

The big boys back at Headquarters didn't actually care, mind you. They just wanted the fucking Imps exterminated, and they wanted it done  _yesterday_.

At this point, Leo wholeheartedly agreed with them. Which is why he was wedged above a Denobulan sewer pipe, mowing down Imps with surgical precision from the higher vantage, while Mac and Portman scrambled out of claw range. One of the creatures shot its tongue dart at Portman, who barely dodged it before Leo could blow its head off.

Not for the first time, he wished that he could at least come up with a vaccine for the damned infection that served as the mutation vector. Far too many members of the team carried the psycho gene that got the monsters all hot and bothered. At least each Imp only had one shot at reproduction. Otherwise, the known galaxy would probably be long since overrun.

That horrific thought made him place his next few shots a little more viciously and less clinically than he usually would.

All of the Imps but one had been neutralized when Mac went down under a nasty backhanded swipe of its claws. As Portman proceeded to reduce the holdout to mincemeat, Leo swung down and darted over to the young Japanese soldier, sliding under the wavering man's arm to support his weight. His free hand flew to the gash on Mac's throat. Though the bleeding was profuse, he was grateful to note that the carotid artery had at least been spared. In other words, nothing he couldn't handle, even under field conditions.

Hell, who was he kidding? Battlefield conditions were his new goddamn specialty.

"Fucking  _hell_  Reaper, how many times are we going to have this conversation?" The ringing reprimand was so familiar—and expected—that Leo's hands never even faltered.

Of  _course_  Sarge had made it just in fucking time to know that he'd gone for his injured teammate  _before_  the last Imp went down. It was an old argument between them, and one that Sarge was  _never_  going to win—even if it killed Leo.

He was realistic enough to realize that it very well might, but he figured that his life expectancy was shot all to hell, anyway.

"All thirty-six are accounted for, Sarge. I kept track of the damned things, same as always," he said, coolly. He'd learned early on that any show of heat in his temper would only push Sarge to the edge of his own, which was much more dangerous. The man was a goddamn control freak—everything stemmed from that, including his undeniable interest in and concern for the soldiers under his command.

Leo'd spent a lot less time on the wrong side of "educational" sparring matches after he figured that out.

"That isn't the fucking point! I expect you to follow orders, soldier!" Sarge's hand clenched, tellingly, and Leo suppressed a sigh. Apparently, this little clusterfuck already had the man walking the ragged edge.

Unwillingly, he lifted his gaze to meet his CO's, raising one blood-slicked hand in salute. "Yes, sir," he intoned, calm and flat, though he had no doubt his eyes were blazing. "Next time a situation like Death Valley comes up, I'll keep that in mind."

At Death Valley, he'd kept Sarge from bleeding out from his femoral artery while the rest of the boys took on a nest of seven. Invoking it now was risky, but with the adrenaline wearing off and Mac's blood warm and thick between his fingers, he found that he absolutely didn't care.

Sarge must have sensed it, because he broke off the stalemate with a grimace, turning to snap orders at the four men who had fallen silent, as they always did, while their CO and their reluctant medic clashed. His precise position in the RRTS had never been determined, but Leo's original rank—and the credit he'd garnered during his two years with the team—made him the only one willing to risk challenging the Sergeant with any real intent.

When Sarge was in a decent mood, he took it with good grace. Sometimes, he even seemed intrigued by Leo's stubborn streak. When he was angry, or the shit hit the fan—in other words, exactly when it mattered the most—it just pissed him off more.

Either mood could mean trouble, so far as Leo was concerned. Sarge had spent the first six months after he joined the team trying to break him of his accent, along with breaking him to Marine discipline. Oh, he had an excuse, of course: "You're too well known in some circles, Reaper—you can't afford any identifying characteristics like that."

Leo knew it was bullshit—Sarge just wanted to see if he could do it. Flex his power for the benefit of the rookie. He eventually gave up and learned to hide his drawl just to get a little peace. And more than two hours of sleep a night. His "compromises" with Sarge usually ended like that.

He frowned as he placed vascular seals in Mac's neck. Well, he'd be goddamned if he gave up  _this_  fight. He  _liked_  the instinct that drove him to the side of an injured teammate, even in the middle of a firefight. It reassured him that the values that had defined Leonard McCoy hadn't suffocated completely under Reaper's intensive training.

He needed that reassurance, because—despite the occasional insults that his teammates still flung his way—he was very, very good at what he now did. The satisfaction of unknotting a tricky tactical problem matched any he'd ever found in the research laboratory, and the fierce joy that sang through his veins when he moved as a fighter was just as addictive as the post-surgical high he'd so often felt. When he sighted down the scope of his G36, he finally understood Spock's rhapsodic descriptions of the completion he found in meditation.

He knew, beyond doubt, that he had what it took make a career of this, when the Olduvai disaster was resolved. If he wanted to.

He didn't want to. And he didn't want Reaper to be all that was left of him, by the time it was over. But with the Imps tearing him down from one side, and Sarge meticulously grinding at the other, he wasn't naïve enough to believe that the universe cared what he wanted.

**Present Day**

Four years as captain of the flagship had taught Jim a lot about himself. For example, he knew that he'd been operating through a haze of anger for the last week. He even knew that most of it was misplaced. And he was painfully aware that a couple of the decisions he'd allowed that anger to impact were having a detrimental effect on his crew. Unfortunately, this time even that knowledge wasn't enough to push him past the blind fury.

As Spock had been kind enough to point out, he was unquestionably "emotionally compromised" when it came to his CMO. Not that he was the only one who was letting his emotions dictate to his better sense—he could still see Chris Pike's distraught face in his mind's eye, as the admiral all but begged him to sign off on the transfer order. "He  _deserves_  this chance to rebuild his life, Jim. And it's the only thing that I can do for him, now."

Jim wondered how many balls Pike had to bust to get his completely non-regulation way with Bones. Because Jim wasn't an idiot, even if he'd privately been sulking like one for three years. He knew perfectly well what it meant when someone's personnel file vanished into a high-clearance black hole following a hasty transfer to Special Forces. He also knew that putting them back where they came from afterward was anything but standard procedure. He knew that Pike had probably turned HQ upside down and shaken it to give his proteges what he considered a gift, in an attempt to put a terrible wrong as right as he could.

He also knew that the decision had been a huge mistake, because he couldn't just shake off three years' worth of anger and betrayal, despite his new awareness that they were unjustified. And Bones…

Bones was  _different_ , in ways that only seemed to fuel Jim's anger.

Yeah, Jim knew all sorts of useful things. But none of them altered the fact that every damned time he saw Leo McCoy, his fists balled up and his jaw clenched tight. It was an angry posture, and it only fed into the vicious cycle, but it was the best shot at restraint he had.

Bones' shadowed eyes and the tense agility in his movements told Jim more clearly than any words could just how hard the last three years had been, and the urge to simply take the man in his arms and try to soothe that tension away was almost unbearable. Unfortunately, if he gave in to that impulse, he'd probably also give in to the one where he screamed himself hoarse at Bones for being stupid enough to walk out on him and get himself into this mess in the first place.

He didn't need to be told that the net effect would be epically counterproductive, and the last thing he wanted was yet another lecture on "behavior unbecoming an officer." So he hid behind his anger, desperately seeking a solution that wouldn't end with someone bleeding or in tears and knowing that he was only making things worse slowly instead of quickly and cleanly. Because if Jim was hiding behind a wall of anger, Bones had put up an equally impenetrable barrier of sterling professionalism—and it never failed to drive Jim straight past the anger and into infuriated stupidity.

The current staff meeting was looking to become a textbook example of the process, in fact.

xxx

The staff meeting wasn't going well. Again. Leo fought against two conflicting urges: burying his face in his arms in despair rather than facing another moment of Jim's disdain; or, plowing a fist into the bastard's sneering mouth before another demeaning word came out of it.

"You can't seriously expect us to cancel an important exploratory mission because of  _pollen_ , Dr. McCoy," Jim all but spat, eyes narrowing.

Once upon a time, Leo would have raised a mocking brow at such blatant ass-hattery. As it was, Sarge had literally decked the expression off of his face far too many times for him to even need to consciously suppress the reflex. He maintained his by now thoroughly strained neutral expression, instead.

"With all due respect, sir, that isn't what I said. I was merely making you aware of the potential negative cognitive reactions that might arise from interactions with the native plantlife. As per my mandate."

There was a long, hard moment before Jim finally snapped, "Noted," and pointedly turned his attention to his padd.

Leo was so busy trying not to roll his eyes – or, you know, break down in hysterics like he hadn't in three goddamned years, thank you very much – that he didn't manage to stop the bitter, angry smirk that twisted his mouth for a moment.

"I am unable to discern the source of your amusement, Doctor," Spock intoned, his disapproval completely unmistakable. Leo could only take comfort in the fact that it wasn't directed at him alone.

He steepled his fingers and met the Vulcan's gaze with an equanimity he didn't feel. "That's entirely understandable, since I was just evaluating the probable ramifications of my imminent nervous breakdown." He used the pleasantly derisive tone of voice that he had perfected for use against Sarge—the one that said "yes, sir" but clearly meant "fuck you," though not in any way his CO could act upon. "Would you care to contribute your own observations to the inquiry, Commander?"

The shocked silence that met his declaration was gratifying, for the first three seconds. After that, he just felt tired, a little ashamed, and far older than his thirty-five years could warrant.

"I'll take that as a no," he continued, scraping together something resembling a businesslike manner and turning to the table at large. "Was there anything else on the agenda?" Several heads shook, slowly. Unwillingly, he completed the circuit to meet Jim's eyes,  _knowing_  that the weary frustration and growing despair in his own would be obvious to his former…whatever. "Will you be adjourning the meeting then, Captain?"

The penetrating gaze that was turned on him in return couldn't quite be called a glare, and it quickly vanished under a too-careful neutrality. "Dismissed," came the delayed, quiet response. He nodded and stood to leave, trying—and, he suspected, failing—to banish the Marine-instilled rigidity that had crept into his bearing.

"Do you have another urgent appointment, Doctor?" Spock interrupted his exit. He rolled his eyes and didn't bother to face the man. Nosy hobgoblin wasn't even  _trying_  to be subtle anymore.

"If you really need an itinerary, then I'll be in medical. Preparing for major surgery, if you consider that important." His barriers were hopelessly worn down by Jim's constant assault, and a strong measure of his carefully buried sarcasm seeped into the response. Oddly enough, he heard at least one sigh of relief from behind him.

"I was unaware that any crewmen were scheduled for surgical procedures today," Spock pushed, apparently unsatisfied by this oblique response.

He couldn't suppress his own resigned sigh. "Nothing scheduled but this away mission." The grim and ironic amusement he felt at the situation was likewise audible now, and he strode away before he could get himself in even more trouble.

When the away team returned, he repaired Ensign Trayell's broken ribs and collapsed lung, set the compound fracture of Lieutenant Ong's femur, and sealed the eleven inch gash on Jim's back.

He didn't say "I told you so." He didn't tell the man that he was driving him fucking crazy, and that the trip was likely to be a short one. In fact, he didn't exchange  _any_  words with his captain aside from "Hold still," and "You're cleared for duty, sir."

By the time he'd finished, it was well into gamma shift, and he was able to slip into the practice range unnoticed. After disabling the room's data tracking function, he put holes in the holographic targets with a phase rifle until his vision blurred and his shoulders burned from the effort.

He was still a doctor, at heart.

Unfortunately, it was becoming more and more difficult to pretend that he was nothing else.

xxx

Although the worst of his anger had been routed by confusion after the disastrous staff meeting that everyone was still refusing to speak of, almost two weeks after Leo's return Jim still wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond to him. Officially, there was nothing amiss—delegating Spock, whose personal relationship with the doctor had never progressed much beyond bemused tolerance, to take reports from Medical was actually SOP. And it was patently clear to Jim, as Captain, that Dr. McCoy was performing his duties with unimpaired competence and sterling professionalism. Personally, however, Jim's feelings about the situation were anything but professional.

Hell, how was he supposed to react? Leo McCoy had been the single most important person in his life for almost four years. Jim never considered the man his lover; that implied a regularity that the physical aspect of their relationship just didn't possess. Still, if it was sporadic, it had also been utterly dependable—whenever skin-hunger and self-loathing overtook one of them, when the need was devastating but the thought of reaching out to satisfy it unbearable, the other had simply been there, no questions asked. Despite appearances, they'd been far more than buddies with occasional mind-blowing benefits. Boyfriends? It seemed like a shallow, saccharine term for their profoundly matter-of-fact situation, and neither of them had ever suggested it. In truth, it had never occurred to Jim to try to put a name to their arrangement until it was suddenly, painfully absent.

They were certainly roommates, even after the move to the  _Enterprise_  had provided them with separate quarters. They slept in whichever bed the first of them happened to stumble into at the end of the day, and the distinction between individual sets of possessions had quickly blurred into imperceptibility as items passed between the two rooms with impunity. When he'd been called upon to untangle his belongings from Bones', before the first of the doctor's many successors was moved aboard, Jim had found that in many cases he genuinely couldn't remember who'd first claimed what.

Uncovering a faded Ole Miss tee shirt at the bottom of his own drawer, well-worn and still smelling faintly of its original owner over a year after his desertion, had been what finally drove Jim to Gaila's bed. There, he'd experienced his first full night's sleep since said desertion, and although he was certain that Gaila had noted his uncharacteristic attire, she never mentioned it.

Jim strongly suspected that the Orion woman had her own "arrangement" with Bones, and had been suffering its loss in her own way. Still, as the two of them fumbled toward their current unexpected but comfortable monogamy, neither mentioned the skeleton in their mutual closet.

He sometimes wondered, uncomfortably, if he was repeating old mistakes with that silence. And since he'd spent ten days trying desperately  _not_  to scrutinize his CMO as the man stalked the ship with that tightly-coiled grace, so fascinatingly compelling and yet troubling in its unfamiliarity, he'd had many opportunities to observe Gaila as  _she_  tracked the doctor with desire and concern at war in her eyes. From the assessing glances that she flicked toward him with increasingly regularity, Jim got the impression that the only reason she had yet to confront Leo was her deference to what she considered to be Jim's stronger claim—and that her frustration was growing as he failed to assert that claim.


End file.
